Take cover, tomatoes, it’s cold tonight ~ September 11, 1986

David Heiller

The tomatoes are testing fate, and testing our patience, just as they have all summer.

All right, maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on them. Our first 24 transplants were cut down in their youth by a killer frost on June first. I discovered them at 3 a.m. gasping in the grips of that silent killer two months and 11 days ago. We put new transplants in that same week, and they’ve been testing fate ever since.

A tiny portion of the tomatoes
 I have processed.

Planting tomatoes in Birch Creek Township is always a gamble, not matter when the frost says goodbye in the spring, and says hello in the fall. You keep an ear cocked to the radio for frost warnings this time of year, the way British listened for the Luftwaffe in the fall of 1940.

Our first frost this fall came on August 27. I covered the tomatoes with every spare blanket and piece of plastic I could find. I even tried to take the quilt from the baby’s crib, but Cindy drew the line there. Even the tomatoes are not that important, she said. I guess she’s right.

Since then, we’ve had three more frosts, the latest coming on Saturday. The cold night left a quarter-inch skin of ice on the water in the wheelbarrow by the garden Sunday morning. But the tomatoes dozed through the ordeal, warm under their coverings.

I’m not sure all this covering and uncovering is worth the trouble. We must have a thousand tomatoes on those 24 plants. But their sizes range from a large chicken egg to a ping pong ball. They are hard, and very, very green. When we see a glimmer of flush, we snatch them up and carry them gently under our arms like baby chicks, into the house to ripen. Cindy checks them twice a day, but I’m not so fussy and go out only once.

The slugs seem to be checking them too, because every other one that starts to ripen has a hole bored into it. A lot of fat, smiling slugs are hanging out in the tomato beds, watching and waiting. The tomatoes might be too frightened to ripen.

Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to live in a climate that doesn’t get a frost in August, where you can actually see red tomatoes on the vine. When I went to my hometown in southeastern Minnesota three weeks ago, I saw some plants that I didn’t recognize at first. A lot of the leaves were gone, and they were drooping with red fruit. Quite a few lay on the ground even. At first I thought it was some exotic imported mango from the tropics. But looking closer, I saw that they were tomatoes. Then I remembered from my childhood, actually seeing tomatoes ripen, enough that they fall and rot on the ground. And the gardeners there have a more serene look. Their smile says, “What’s a few tomatoes?” It’s a self confidence you seldom find here. They’ve never heard of a frost warning. “Why would anybody be afraid of frost?” they ask, while eating a tomato.

Not all garden varieties are as nervous as tomatoes up here. Some do quite nicely, thank you. We pulled a beet from the ground Sunday that weighed one pound, 15 ounces. We ate the whole thing for supper at one sitting. Our three year old son ate a good portion of it, because he thinks it was a sugar beet, and anything with sugar in it has got to be good. I fear the day that he finds out how much iron and vitamin A beets have.

Carrots are gangbuster crops here too. We filled a wagon on Sunday. The broccoli is just coming into its own. It likes frosty nights, and dares Mother Nature to snow. The potatoes also thumb their nose—or eyes—at the cold. The green peppers are crispy and green, the size of your fist. Even the sweet corn, which was planted after the tomatoes, is ripening up enough for us to eat.

So we have to be patient with tomatoes. I want to be a bully, shame them into action: “Come on, you panty-waisted loafers. What are you waiting for? Ripen, or I’ll feed you to the slugs one by one!” But I kept my words to myself, and cover them with blankets at night like children. Maybe they will thank me for it someday, by making a nice spaghetti sauce or casserole base. But don’t hold your breath. As the saying goes, “Don’t count your tomatoes before they ripen.” Or something like that.

Illness brings both sorrow and hope ~ October 26, 1995

David Heiller

Grandma and Malika at the cabin. (1990)

Cindy’s mother, Lorely, was diagnosed with cancer on Saturday, October 15. Lorely spent ten rough days in the hospital, and will spend many more days at home, recovering and taking chemotherapy.

Cindy has been gone nearly all of the time since the cancer was discovered. I’m realizing in a hurry how hard it is to be a single parent.

Lorely’s illness is making me appreciate both Lorely and Cindy more than I ever have.

Many thoughts have crossed my mind about Lorely since the illness was discovered. She has so many good qualities, like her love for her family and her generosity. She had strength enough to raise three children as a single parent without child support payments or extra finan­cial help. I have great respect for that.

People usually don’t think about qualities like this in a parent until the parent is facing illness or death, which is a little late. Sometimes too late.

But that’s not clear in Lorely’s case. The can­cer is calling all the shots. It has its own time zone, and all we can do is go kicking and scratching along with it.

Grandma warming up her
 Noah at a chilly soccer game. (1990)

And say a prayer or two. I took the kids to church on Sunday. They didn’t want to go, as usual. But I said it would be a good time to say a prayer for Grandma, and they understood.

After the offering, I leaned over to each 
of them and reminded them about the Grandma prayer. Then we sang “Beautiful Savior,” and that made me think of Lorely. Tears welled up in my eyes. One dripped on the left lens of my glasses.

I didn’t wipe the tears away. I figured no one would see them. But a boy in the pew ahead of us did, and he gave me a curious look, like he was wondering what was wrong. Maybe he’s never seen a man cry before. That’s okay He’ll have plenty of time for that.

We sang the song with the gusto reserved for all good hymns. On the third verse, the organist quit playing, and we sang in unison, just the voices. It 
sounded strong and pure. I wanted to stop and listen, but I wanted to sing even more, so I did, and the strength of those voices gave me hope.

Immediately after our wedding.

Tears crop up at all hours these days. From Cindy in the wee hours of the 
morning, her body wracked with sorrow.

From Lorely’s other daughter, Nancy, at the breakfast table when she talked about a recent trip to Wisconsin with her mother.

From Lorely as she listened to our daughter sing her a song in the hospital. It’s a time for crying. There is plenty of sorrow in this world of ours.

But there is plenty of joy as well, and there is still time for that, time to appreciate your loved ones, to not take them for granted, to accept them for what they are.

Nothing beats a good walking stick ~ October 26, 2005

David Heiller

A couple weeks ago I asked Mom if she still had any red cedar for making a walking stick.

Mom of course knew exactly what I was talking about, even though the subject of walking sticks hadn’t arisen in the old homestead for about 10 years.

“Yes, in the far corner of the basement, by the furnace;” she said.

David with his walking stick and his
 sister Jeanne walking through 
the hills of Brownsville.

Sure enough, there they were, just as I had left them after a stick-gathering walk in the woods a long time ago. Maybe 20 years, not 10.

I hefted several of them, and found the right one. It’s going to be a Christmas gift for a certain someone. I’ll call him “Alex.” (I always like how the advice columnists put names in quotation marks to hide their identity.)

Alex is a lot like me, although without a 52-year-old girth. So I figure if I like the stick, he’ll like it.

I took it home and could hardly wait to peel off the cedar bark and trim the knots with a hatchet and knife. It soon had the sleek, strong look of a good walking stick. I worked on it for the next week, just a few minutes here and there. It’s fun to take your time with a project, let it speak to you a bit. For example, I toyed with the idea of carving or wood-burning Alex’s name in it. But after a few days. I thought no. Walking sticks can’t be too gaudy. Nothing against those ornate kind that people sell. They can be magnificent. But you want a walking stick that you aren’t afraid to lose. It is, after all, just a stick. Well, maybe not quite.

I lost a very nice stick back in about 1977. It had been a gift from a co-worker at Camp Courage, and it too was made of red cedar. He had coated it with linseed oil, and it was indestructible, like the staff of Moses. I had it for several years, and even took it on a backpacking trip in Glacier National Park. But that didn’t stop me from setting it down on a hike from Brownsville to the Heiller Valley and walking away. I never did find it. It’s probably still leaning against a tree above Shellhorn.

I finally sanded Alex’s stick, gave it a good soaking of linseed oil, and hung it in the barn, where it will patiently wait for a firm and loving hand.

Alex and Laura, Malika, David and I took a long
hike each wielding a David red cedar walking stick.

Then I returned to Mom’s basement and found a smaller stick for Alex’s girlfriend, “Laura.” I wasn’t quite as sure what she would like, because she and I are not alike, at least in the physical sense, and that’s a good thing. I found a skinny stick. It was crooked, but it had good balance. You could hold it a couple different ways and it felt just right. That’s another thing about a good walking stick. It doesn’t have to be this straight grained, perfect piece of wood. It can have a bend or a crook, but it has to have balance.

Working on a cedar walking stick in 1992 

It was exciting getting this stick in shape too. It emerged like a butterfly from a cocoon. Now it is awaiting some final touches, a little sanding, maybe some more peeling here and there, and good old linseed oil. Then it will hang next to Alex’s stick until I give it to them.

My own walking stick right now is special too. I found it at the home of a friend, Willie Boyer, in about 1982, shortly after he died. He was a hermit, and we didn’t hear of his death until a couple weeks later.

We drove the 40 miles to his house, and poked around. No one was there. He was a woodsman, and could make things like axe handles out of white oak. He was really good at it. He had some pieces of white oak standing in the corner of his outhouse, so I took a couple and made walking sticks from them. I am down to my last one now. It is a very plain stick, but as strong as anything you could find, and it carries a lot of good memories of my old friend. I hope I get to keep using it for many years. Because there’s nothing like a good walk, and nothing beats a good walking stick.

Outhouses bring out the best in overnight guests ~ October 17,1985

David Heiller

There’s always a bit of adventure when friends and relatives come to visit at our house, often thanks to not having an indoor bathroom.

I’ve gotten used to the privvy, but city-dwellers especially seem to put the walk to the outhouse in the same category as a trip through the jungles of the Amazon.

The bane of many guests at our house
 in those days: The Outhouse.

Take this past weekend, for example. On Saturday morning, my mother-in-law arrived for a two-day visit. She sat down at the kitchen table and announced, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Most 53-year-old women don’t proclaim such things at the kitchen table. But at our house such announcements are often made by guests, because our bathroom is a two-seater about 20 yards from the house. By stating her intentions, my mother-in-law was working up the courage to actually pay her visit.

An hour later, still sitting at the kitchen table and two cups of coffee further along, she announced again, “Well, I guess I’ll go to the bathroom.”

“I thought you said that an hour ago,” I said.

“Yes, I did,” she answered, not moving.

Sometime that afternoon—I never did see her leave—she made the trip, and survived. That’s a sidelight to the main story here. You see, for the weak of heart—or bladder—we have a chamber pot, one which my wife gives up for a night as an age-old gesture of hospitality when company dares sleep over. Cindy dutifully offered the chamber pot to her mother, who almost grabbed it out of her hands, as the thought of stumbling outside in 30-degree night darkness sank in.

These two are what got my mom to even consider 
a visit to our VERY humble abode.

I arose early Sunday morning at about 5 a.m. to get a bottle for our son, and walked past mom’s sleeping form, on the hide-a-bed in the living room. I heard the cat outside. She’s been catching a mouse nearly every morning in our living room, so I let her in.

An hour later, I got up again, to light a fire in the wood stove. As I entered the living room, there sat Lorely, at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette. Seeing her up on a Sunday morning at that hour is like seeing the sun rise at two in the afternoon. Darned near unheard of.

“What are you doing up?” I asked.

“That cat of yours caught a mouse.” She gestured to a dead mouse, in front of the stove, which the cat had proudly laid out for all to admire.

“That’s good,” I said. “When did she catch it?”

“Just now.”

“And it woke you up?” I asked.

“Woke me up?” she asked. “I was sitting on the chamber pot when it happened.”

Now I could understand why she was so wide awake.

My mother was not a cat person, but she and
 Miss Emma became the best of friends.

“I was just sitting there; and the cat crouched over there, and then this mouse ran in front of me, and...”

Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t finish. The outhouse was bad enough, and even inside, there was no safe haven for bodily functions.

That night, I asked Lorely if she felt up to the mouse challenge again. Cindy butted in: “Mom, maybe you’d like to sleep in our bed upstairs? We’ll sleep on the hide-a-bed. You wouldn’t mind, would you, David?”

I had slept on our hide-a-bed once before, and was still recovering from the back pain. “Well, we’ve had mice upstairs,” I said cautiously.

“When?” Cindy demanded.

“Why just the other day. In fact, it was so big, it might have been a rat, I’m not sure.”

Cindy’s mom looked at me, actually looked through me. Her eyes flashed back on a mouse in front of her as she squatted helplessly in dim morning light. “Do cats eat mice on beds?” she asked.

“Go ahead, sleep in our bed, I don’t mind,” I said.

Lorely slept a sound, mouse-less sleep on Sunday. I woke up feeling like a piece of rebar was holding my back in place.

People tell me I should put a toilet in our house. Maybe they’re right. But even a sore back is worth the adventure that comes with our outhouse. 

Take a walk in the woods—and soon! ~ October 4, 1990

David Heiller

If you’ve got a spare hour or a spare day, take a walk in the woods, and do it soon. Our family tramped around Banning State Park on Monday of this week. Cindy’s sister, Nancy, had been looking after Mollie, so she packed a lunch and we met at Banning for a picnic and hike.

We spread tuna fish on crackers and cut up a couple of homegrown tomatoes and had a meal that fit the day like a glove, pretty and simple and good for you.

Then we hiked, following the Kettle River south toward Sandstone. Other people had the same idea. Usually Banning is deserted during the week, but not last Monday. We saw a young man sleeping on a picnic table, using his knapsack as a pillow and using the sun as a blanket. We pulled over as another guy met us coming up a narrow, rocky trail. We saw several couples, young and old.

The sun moved in and out from its skirt of cotton clouds. When it shone, it warmed us like toast, and when it didn’t we walked a bit faster to keep the chill away. Mostly it shone, and soon Nancy and Mollie had handed their coats to Cindy to carry.

A different hike in Banning:
 Nancy watching Noah and Malika enjoy the park.

Underfoot, maple and poplar and birch leaves had created a bright walkway of yellow and red, some bright red like candy, others mottled with yellow, as if someone had poured on a bit of yellow paint before the red had dried.

Above, the leaves filtered the sun into a warm yellow glow. The air had that fall smell, dry and crackling, of leaves on the ground and vegetation that is turning in for the winter: A smell of squirrel hunting from my younger days.

We found a cluster of four pine cones on the ground from a Norway pine, with needles still attached. “Noah can bring it to show and tell,” I said, handing it to Cindy, the official carrier of things. He’s been bringing things like that for the past week to his first grade class.

Noah was in school while we walked, and I thought how much he would be enjoying this. Not that he doesn’t like school, but he’s chafing a bit from the daily schedule and he would take a hike in the park any day, as would most kids, and most teachers. Unfortunately, life isn’t that logical.

Mollie has a year of freedom left, every other day at least, and we all made the most of it on Monday. She led us on, wanting to take every spur she discovered to the edge of the river so she could toss in the “sparkly” rocks she’d found.

Mollie likes to edge close to any sheer drop-off that will scare us. She knows, like all five-year-olds, what makes Mom and Dad nervous. And how do you as a parent try to act nonchalant as your daughter stands on the lip of a rock that is 30 feet straight above one of the most dangerous rivers in Minnesota? Let’s just say that we held her hand a lot.

We saw a lot of beauty on the trip, us and the others who meandered along the Banning trails on a sunny October morning. The trip made our day. And later that night, as I drove home from a school board meeting, I found myself grinning again, feeling the sun, smelling the leaves.

That’s what parks and fall and families are all about.

The end of a giant friend ~ October 15, 1987

David Heiller

We lost a friend on Saturday, a century old friend that we have known for the past six years.

When we moved to our homestead in May, 1981, this friend welcomed us. He stood erect to the southwest of the house, leaning over the house towering above us, a full 70 feet. He made us feel at home, just as he made the family of orioles feel at home in their swaying nest our first two summers here. Orioles love elm trees.

After the elm was felled, it started snowing.  
Noah grabbed an umbrella and played 
jack-in-the-box in the hollow stump. 
The hollow stump held flowers for many 
years before that too, had to be removed.

But the next year, 1984, the orioles did not return. Our elm tree showed us why. A few of the outer limbs had turned brown in June, their leaves shriveling too early in the summer.

The orioles weren’t taking any chances. Dutch elm disease had arrived.

Still, for the next two summers, the elm stood in its place. It shaded our house so well in the summer that even the scorchers of July wouldn’t get our home hot. The inside temperature never rose to 80 degrees. And less fretful birds, like rose breasted grosbeaks, weren’t afraid to pass through and rest in the high branches of the American elm.

The kids didn’t mind the withering limbs either. I tied a heavy rope onto the lowest branch, using an 18-foot section of extension ladder. Like most projects I construct, the swing swung in a cock-eyed pattern. I had tied the two rope ends to the same branch, one about a foot higher than the other, so that no matter how carefully you started your ride at the bottom, by the second or third swing up, you would ride sideways, and have to hop off to avoid the heavy elm trunk. A trunk that is 37 inches in diameter, and 10 feet, four inches in circumference, can’t get out of the way.

By last summer, only one branch leafed out on the mighty elm. When the rope on the swing broke, I raised the ladder again, and took it down. No point in putting up a new one.

Deane and Kathryn, masters of  their trades.
Many wonderful things at our homestead
would never have happened 
(or happened so well) without the aid of the Hillbrands!

Last Saturday afternoon, Deane Hillbrand and his brother, Steve, came ever to cut the tree down. It had dropped some of its smaller branches on our house during the summer thunderstorms. One of its main limbs would have flattened our house.

Deane brought along one of his Stihl chainsaws, with a 20-inch bar. Deane builds log homes for a living. His chainsaws cut like butter knives. His eye for a cut is usually perfect. He can, (and has), built homes without using a single nail. He thought he could drop the elm tree to the southwest, even though it leaned to the northeast, over our house. Cindy and I trusted Deane.

Steven climbed up the tree, and attached a chain around one of the two main limbs of the tree. To this chain he attached another chain, plus a 75-foot cable. We attached the chain to a stump in the garden, with a come-a-long link to pull and steer the elm. We attached the cable to Steve’s truck, which we parked farther out in the garden.

Deane eyed the elm for several minutes, then made his notch cut.

“It’s hollow,” he yelled as he hit into the center part of trunk. Large chunks of rotten wood flew out from the chainsaw.

Steve looked worried, as he tightened the come-a-long. He stood in the path of the elm, 50 feet away. The hollow center would make the cutting more difficult. There wasn’t much of a hinge for the tree to fall on.

Deane went to work on the other side. He cut in one side, then the other. He pounded wedges that he had made from two by six boards into the cut. Steve pulled tighter. I popped the truck into gear. I could see light through the hollow trunk, where Deane had cut. Only a narrow band of wood on either side of the center kept the elm standing. Deane pounded more on the wedges, used his saw a little more on each side.

Another woods-y adventure with Dean, Kathryn and 
Steve, along with our kids and Steve's daughter Leah. 
(and Joey too)

“Is it coming any?” Steve called. His voice had an edge to it.

“About an inch and a half,” Deane hollered back.

Steve smiled at me. “It’s come an inch and a half,” he repeated, even though I had heard Deane too.

Deane made his final cut, and Steve nodded firmly to me to get the truck in gear and keep going. He cranked the come-a-long, the handle now turning with a click-click-click. The elm swayed, and Steve ran, and I drove the truck out of the garden as the earth shook and trembled with the fallen giant.

Sure enough, the tree’s core was hollow for a good 14 inches across. Steve’s kids and our kids climbed onto the branches, while Cindy and I stood back and marveled at Deane’s skill. Everyone had held their breath, except Deane.

We’ve already started cutting up the elm. The hollow trunk will make a nice pot for geraniums. The wood has warmed our house the past few nights. It is perfectly seasoned for burning. The elm will keep us warm this winter. That’s a good feeling, to know the elm tree that kept us so cool in the hot summer will I keep us warm this winter.

But we sure will miss that tree. It was a good friend.

Tomorrow is such a long time ~ October 5, 1989

David Heiller

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death...

Macbeth spoke those words at the end of a bitter life of power and betrayal. And now they are coming back to haunt me through the words of my four-year-old daughter.

Mollie hasn’t started reading Shakespeare yet. She’s not even reading Olga Da Polga, although she listens to Cindy read it every night at bedtime.

But on the subject of “tomorrow”, she can keep up with Bill Shakespeare just fine, thank you.

It usually starts the previous night, when we are saying goodnight, lying in her bed. Mollie starts by seeking promises.

“Can I wear my heart dress tomorrow?” she’ll ask.

“Uh-huh,” I’ll answer in a dull voice. Mollie has a way of wearing your voice down to a dull edge by seven in the evening.

If it is real dull, she’ll move boldly on: “Can I go to Day Care tomorrow?” Uh-huh. “Can I stay at Bobby-Jo’s house tomorrow?” Uh-huh. “Can I have the keys to the car tomorrow?” Uh-huh.

Then the next day she calls us due: “Is it tomorrow?” she starts. And we answer with a cruel grins, “No, it’s today.”

Monday morning she sat down to her bowl of oatmeal and asked, “Is it tomorrow?”

Cindy answered while brushing Mollie’s hair into a pony tail: “Today is Monday, tomorrow is Tuesday.”

“Is it tomorrow today?” Mollie persisted. “When it’s Tuesday, it will be today,” Cindy said.

If we do two ponies tomorrow, when will that be?

“And tomorrow will be Wednesday,” Noah said, trying to be helpful. “Today is Monday, yesterday was Sunday, tomorrow will be Tuesday.” Noah has the grinding patience of a six-year-old.

“Tomorrow do two ponies,” Mollie instructed Cindy the Hair Fixer.

“What day is tomorrow?” Cindy tested. “I don’t know, the other day,” Mollie answered.

“When you go to sleep, then after that’s it’s a different day,” Noah tried. “But always the same year.”

By this time, even I was getting confused, and we changed the subject. But I thought about it all day Monday. When does a kid learn what “tomorrow” means? How do you explain it? You can try, but what’s the point, I thought. Sooner or later, you get it.

Maybe that’s why Shakespeare, Dylan, and every poet on down to bottom-feeding newspaper editors like to write about “tomorrow”.

I had a similar problem when I was her age. I remember asking my brother, “If Brownsville is in Minnesota, what state is Minnesota in?”

Explaining tomorrow will make you 
feel as though you are up a tree.

He should have answered, “Not a very good one,” but he gave me some answer like Noah gave Mollie, and I didn’t understand, until one day, I just knew it. A miracle.

On Monday night, I tried to probe Mollie further. We sat in the living room after supper. A warm fire crackled in the woodstove. Mollie was lying on the floor, drawing pictures with a pen in a yellow, legal notepad. One picture per page, a few circles and the picture is done. We go through a lot of legal pads at our house.

“What is ‘tomorrow’?” I asked. I was referring to the concept.

“Tomorrow is Tuesday,” she answered. “Tomorrow is Tuesday?”

“Un-huh.”

She crawled onto my lap and showed me her picture, some circles and lines with two smudges in the middle.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing to the ink spots.

“Belly buttons,” she said with a sly laugh.

“You can’t have two belly buttons,” I said.

“No, this is a belly button and this is an owie,” the Quick Thinker responded.

So much for my probe. How do you comprehend logic like that?

I’ll figure it out tomorrow.